Archive for September, 2014

In this blog post I marry work and play: qualitative research and movies. You, Dear Reader, have an assignment. Your mission is to identify: 1) the character who uttered the line, 2) the movie in which the quote appears, and 3) the connection the quote has to … QUALITATIVE RESEARCH, of course!

QUESTIONS:

A. “The stuff that dreams are made of.”

B. “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

C. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”

D. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

E. “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

ANSWERS:

A: Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon, 1941

QUALITATIVE CONNECTION: A qualitative researcher feels at times like Sam Spade. Companies are searching for an elusive Maltese Falcon of their own, the product or service that meets unmet needs and generates bazillions of dollars for perpetuity.

B: Margo Channing, All About Eve, 1950

QUALITATIVE CONNECTION: Sometimes research projects don’t go well. Often this results from 1) an unrealistic or difficult recruit, or 2) unclear/shifting research objectives. There is no easy solution to a bumpy research project, but it helps if researcher, client(s) and other stakeholders regroup, and reassess if the project starts to go off the rails. This is easier said than done, but no good comes from ignoring the warning signs.

C: Michael Corleone, The Godfather II, 1974

QUALITATIVE CONNECTION: Know the competition. Smart businesses regularly conduct research with their competitors’ customers to understand what makes them tick.

QUALITATIVE CONNECTION: Like Meg Ryan in the infamous scene filmed at Katz’ deli in NYC, sometimes respondents fake it. There tends to be a positive bias in concept assessments. Smart researchers know this and build in techniques to get the real story.

E. Blanche DuBois, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951

QUALITATIVE CONNECTION: It’s amazing how much people want to help. Yes, participants get paid for the efforts, as they should, but at the heart of qualitative research sessions is the indisputable truth that people want to add value, to contribute. And they do. Our entire industry is built upon, well, the kindness of strangers.

My husband, the country boy, married a “city girl.” Four years ago we made a deliberate decision to move from the Chicago suburbs back into city life, this time in Portland, OR (a shout out to “Portlandia” if you don’t already know this amazing city!). Though peculiar to some, I feel safer in dense housing, I love mass transit, the number and variety of events and activities suit my curiosities, I love the range of the humanity mix. Yes, I enjoy camping and hotels.

I never gave thought to being part of an exploding statistic. Then I noticed that three projects and three more proposals completed in the past 6 months were in direct response to global urbanization! Urbanization is the increasing number of people that migrate from rural to urban areas. What do these savvy marketers know that I don’t?

If you’re not an urban dweller today, you will likely become one–within 15 years. In 1800, only 2% of the world’s population was urban. In 2014, 180,000 people are added to the urban population each day! By 2030, 84% of the population in developed countries will be living in urban areas.

What does this mean for our lifestyles? For your business? If you’re not exploring how urban populations might help or hurt your brand or business, you should be. Examples of emergent creativity:

Economic

A boom in small businesses to support the needs of urban populations. High rise bodegas, pet care, mobile child care centers, shoes for the increase in pedestrians, geo-location smartphone advertising to replace physical billboards, storage solutions, etc. Pedestrian monitoring is already underway in NYC to track traffic patterns for transit, lighting, and business solutions. Potholes in Boston are reported automatically by the drivers of the cars that hit them through a smartphone app called Street Bump.

Environmental

Packaging that reduces waste. As cities grow, so does the trash. At least 28 countries currently have laws designed to encourage reduced packaging and greater recycling of packaging discards. Portland already has reduced trash pick-up to motivate conservation and city-wide composting!

Indoor/personal farming: Vertical gardens are growing to replace the loss or degradation of farmland due to development and pollution. Creative solutions to fresh water, urban irrigation, fresh produce, fresh air are needed.

Personal

Personal healthcare: Minute clinics in more locations, wearable technology for cheaper and more frequent medical monitoring, home lab processing, and webcam consultations are changing the face of healthcare.

Hedonistic pleasures and unique physical experiences are needed antidotes to the stress of dense environments. Have you taken aerobic drumming or spin yoga yet? Tower climbs instead of the gym? Singles enjoy a beer and childish hide-n-seek to work off stress while doing your laundry? Global travel is expected to increase fourfold in the next ten years to help urban dwellers recharge.

Social

Proximity and ease of mass transport becomes ever more critical for the health of cities and people. Look for supplemental transit to buses and light rail – pedicabs, cycling commutes, Segway, and stronger home office worker networks creating more urban centers.

Don’t let doomsayers distract you from the opportunities before us. History has demonstrated that policies restricting urban migration are ineffective at stalling city growth, anyway. In truth, urbanization is more likely to produce economic, social, and environmental improvements. The “Urban Millennium” is upon us; are you ready?